Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > U.S. Forums > Colorado > Denver
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
Reply Start New Thread
 
Old 09-06-2013, 02:14 PM
 
31 posts, read 41,966 times
Reputation: 39

Advertisements

Myself and my family live in Louisville co which is just 10 mins from Boulder. It is a wonderful safe place to live and the schools are excellent.Its an excellent family town with lots of activities for kids going on.the town is just minutes from the foothills if you enjoy the hiking, mountain biking or climbing and only 40 mins from the closest skiing too.plus the highway is right there to jump on to get to denver which is at the most 30mins away and thats in rush hour traffic. The homes start at 350 up oh and it was voted the homes#2 best town in the country to live!
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 09-07-2013, 04:14 PM
 
Location: Campbell, CA
33 posts, read 59,145 times
Reputation: 12
Quote:
Originally Posted by kiwid View Post
Myself and my family live in Louisville co which is just 10 mins from Boulder. It is a wonderful safe place to live and the schools are excellent.Its an excellent family town with lots of activities for kids going on.the town is just minutes from the foothills if you enjoy the hiking, mountain biking or climbing and only 40 mins from the closest skiing too.plus the highway is right there to jump on to get to denver which is at the most 30mins away and thats in rush hour traffic. The homes start at 350 up oh and it was voted the homes#2 best town in the country to live!
kiwid - Sounds wonderful! My only concern is that homes start at 350...we were trying to stay under 350. Definitely worth looking into though. Thank you!
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 09-07-2013, 09:26 PM
 
7 posts, read 10,621 times
Reputation: 32
I moved here from Northern California and am in the medical field so I can give you some perspective. As one poster mentioned, do not move here simply because you think you will get more house for your money. The cost of living here is much, much less than in Northern California, and yes you can afford to buy here, not just rent for eternity. However, the cost of living here is high compared to wages. You will be hard pressed to find the kind of house I think you are looking for in the price range you are looking at. If you do so, you will be in a suburb likely at least 30 to 45 minutes outside of central Denver. The issue that goes along with that is that suburbs here are nothing like suburbs in California. You will not find walkable neighborhoods with their own downtown areas, mom and pop restaraunts and shops, etc. The suburbs here are truly sprawl, lots of tract housing with strip malls and chain restaurants. The culture here especially in the suburbs is much more conservative than in California. We only in the last two years became a blue state. There is very little to no ethnic diversity here and the culinary and cultural scene reflects that. I stopped long ago trying to find any decent ethnic food here, and I miss that the most about living in the bay area.

Because we want as much culture, diversity and decent food that is available here, we currently live in Denver, in a neighborhood called the "Highlands". It is walkable, there are no chain restaurants, and it's got a great feeling of community. That said, it has undergone a huge change in the last 5 years or so and prior to that was not an area most would have considered safe. Schools in this neighborhood are among the lowest rated in DPS, there is still crime and we have more than one public housing development in this neighborhood. Our house just appraised in our refi at $450,000. There are scrape/ new build properties in this neighborhood listing for $600,000 +. Look at some of the more established walkable neighborhoods in Denver with good schools- Wash Park etc, you're not getting anything decent for under $550,000 and then you're living in a 1,600 square foot house with at least one bedroom in the basement.

Life is much simpler here, people are more innocent, down to earth, and overall I really like living here and think it's a much better place to raise our daughter than California would ever be. It still, however is not a cheap place to live. I am an RN with 14 years of experience and I make $36/hr. When I moved here as a new grad I made $15/ hr. If you call the HR department at any of the hospitals here, you can generally get them to give you an idea of what they would pay you.

I've lived in Texas as well, and I can tell you you will truly get much more bang for your buck in terms of cheap housing there if that's what you are looking for. You will also be in for the culture shock of your life which is why I left as fast as I could. People there are extremely conservative, religious and traditional. I found most of the women to be the typical Texas stereotype- always done up- hair, makeup, you name it to attract the man that they would marry so they could be taken care of. The main activity for most women was shopping, it is far too hot with too many huge insects to have any kind of "outdoor active" lifestyle there. Most people were fairly sedentary and nowhere near as athletic or outdoorsy as you would find in Colorado. There was lots of racism and separation of races in terms of this side of town or that.

I'd advise you to pick somewhere to live based on what you think would fit you best in terms of culture/ activities/ schools etc. Don't worry so much about what your house will look like as that will impact your happiness much less than you think once you find an environment you enjoy. Anywhere will be cheaper than where you are now- you may not end up in the house of your dreams, but you will at least be able to finally afford something you can actually call your own.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 09-07-2013, 09:52 PM
 
Location: 0.83 Atmospheres
11,477 posts, read 11,505,074 times
Reputation: 11976
Quote:
Originally Posted by feepy5 View Post
I moved here from Northern California and am in the medical field so I can give you some perspective. As one poster mentioned, do not move here simply because you think you will get more house for your money. The cost of living here is much, much less than in Northern California, and yes you can afford to buy here, not just rent for eternity. However, the cost of living here is high compared to wages. You will be hard pressed to find the kind of house I think you are looking for in the price range you are looking at. If you do so, you will be in a suburb likely at least 30 to 45 minutes outside of central Denver. The issue that goes along with that is that suburbs here are nothing like suburbs in California. You will not find walkable neighborhoods with their own downtown areas, mom and pop restaraunts and shops, etc. The suburbs here are truly sprawl, lots of tract housing with strip malls and chain restaurants. The culture here especially in the suburbs is much more conservative than in California. We only in the last two years became a blue state. There is very little to no ethnic diversity here and the culinary and cultural scene reflects that. I stopped long ago trying to find any decent ethnic food here, and I miss that the most about living in the bay area.

Because we want as much culture, diversity and decent food that is available here, we currently live in Denver, in a neighborhood called the "Highlands". It is walkable, there are no chain restaurants, and it's got a great feeling of community. That said, it has undergone a huge change in the last 5 years or so and prior to that was not an area most would have considered safe. Schools in this neighborhood are among the lowest rated in DPS, there is still crime and we have more than one public housing development in this neighborhood. Our house just appraised in our refi at $450,000. There are scrape/ new build properties in this neighborhood listing for $600,000 +. Look at some of the more established walkable neighborhoods in Denver with good schools- Wash Park etc, you're not getting anything decent for under $550,000 and then you're living in a 1,600 square foot house with at least one bedroom in the basement.

Life is much simpler here, people are more innocent, down to earth, and overall I really like living here and think it's a much better place to raise our daughter than California would ever be. It still, however is not a cheap place to live. I am an RN with 14 years of experience and I make $36/hr. When I moved here as a new grad I made $15/ hr. If you call the HR department at any of the hospitals here, you can generally get them to give you an idea of what they would pay you.

I've lived in Texas as well, and I can tell you you will truly get much more bang for your buck in terms of cheap housing there if that's what you are looking for. You will also be in for the culture shock of your life which is why I left as fast as I could. People there are extremely conservative, religious and traditional. I found most of the women to be the typical Texas stereotype- always done up- hair, makeup, you name it to attract the man that they would marry so they could be taken care of. The main activity for most women was shopping, it is far too hot with too many huge insects to have any kind of "outdoor active" lifestyle there. Most people were fairly sedentary and nowhere near as athletic or outdoorsy as you would find in Colorado. There was lots of racism and separation of races in terms of this side of town or that.

I'd advise you to pick somewhere to live based on what you think would fit you best in terms of culture/ activities/ schools etc. Don't worry so much about what your house will look like as that will impact your happiness much less than you think once you find an environment you enjoy. Anywhere will be cheaper than where you are now- you may not end up in the house of your dreams, but you will at least be able to finally afford something you can actually call your own.
Great first post!
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 09-08-2013, 12:52 PM
 
Location: Foot of the Rockies
90,316 posts, read 120,475,124 times
Reputation: 35920
My daughter just bought a house for about $350K in a SW suburb of Denver. What you get for that price is nice, spacious but not huge.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 09-08-2013, 06:10 PM
 
Location: high plains
802 posts, read 981,170 times
Reputation: 635
if you choose Texas, you'll be able to get In-and-Out (with a few insults from Whataburger fanatics, of course). best thing to happen down there in a long, long time.
you'd think InandOut would come to Colorado, following the other Californians, but i guess the population hasn't grown enough yet in CO. you can also get Smashburgers, great bbq, and tex-mex there to go with the hellish summers, conservative social outlooks and drought. It's only about 700 miles between the two states, with New Mexico in between, if you want to visit one or the other.

of course, nobody chooses a home based on restaurant food....like nobody chooses a home based on cannabis laws....

Last edited by highplainsrus; 09-08-2013 at 06:27 PM..
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 09-08-2013, 08:17 PM
 
Location: Aurora, CO
8,601 posts, read 14,821,213 times
Reputation: 15361
Quote:
Originally Posted by highplainsrus View Post
if you choose Texas, you'll be able to get In-and-Out (with a few insults from Whataburger fanatics, of course). best thing to happen down there in a long, long time.
you'd think InandOut would come to Colorado, following the other Californians, but i guess the population hasn't grown enough yet in CO. you can also get Smashburgers, great bbq, and tex-mex there to go with the hellish summers, conservative social outlooks and drought. It's only about 700 miles between the two states, with New Mexico in between, if you want to visit one or the other.

of course, nobody chooses a home based on restaurant food....like nobody chooses a home based on cannabis laws....
In-N-Out opened their Texas processing facility near Amarillo, which puts Denver and the Springs well within their predetermined delivery range. They'll come here eventually.

If you decide to move to DFW, in addition to In-N-Out you'll get an allergy season that lasts for 9 months out of the year, heavy duty air pollution all summer, much heavier freeway gridlock than Denver, and cheap housing that's located in far-flung suburbs 45 minutes to an hour from downtown Dallas or Fort Worth. Plus you have to live in a state that believes in tolling the hell out of their highway infrastructure and allowing homeowner's insurance companies to bend citizens over a barrel without so much as a thank you. Texas may be cheap, but it's an ungodly hot, humid, bug-infested dump and I wouldn't go back there for any amount of money in the world.

Last edited by bluescreen73; 09-08-2013 at 08:27 PM..
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:


Settings
X
Data:
Loading data...
Based on 2000-2020 data
Loading data...

123
Hide US histogram

Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > U.S. Forums > Colorado > Denver

All times are GMT -6. The time now is 11:53 AM.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top